The Lottery
by Spygrrl
Summary: Buffy and Faith are befuddled by a special lottery held in order to decide how all council members are choosen to attend a very special current pop culture event.


Title: The Lottery

Author: Spygrrl76

Rating: PG (1 modified curse word)

Words: 905

Characters: Buffy, Faith

Spoilers: A teeny, tiny one for the first S8 comic

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Harry Potter does not belong to me. I'm just a fan who appreciates them both greatly.

All mistakes are mine. Comments are greatly appreciated.

The lights blazed throughout the great room of the Scottish castle. Originally a gathering place for large events and ceremonies, the room continued to serve a similar purpose for the new council. However instead of long wooden tables and benches that might have filled it in the past, it now looked like a modern day hotel conference center had been transported inside the old stone walls. A small raised stage stood at the front of the room, looking out on rows and rows of chairs. An interactive whiteboard sat off to the side and a giant video screen hung from the ceiling behind the stage.

Murmurs of excitement and chatter echoed throughout the old room. The clatter bounced and reverberated off the stones, amplifying the growing noise. Buffy leaned casually against a wall back in the far left corner of the room. Her crossed arms and relaxed stance belying amusement and boredom. Looking out over the crowd of slayers, watchers, witches and other staff that filled the endless rows of chairs, she watched the proceedings with a mixture of pride and humor. Front and center of it all was her sister, the queen bee presiding over her queen-dom.

Standing on stage in front of a microphone, Andrew, her faithful lackey by her side, she repeatedly drew piece of paper from a glass bowl. As she read the names on them aloud, Andrew made note on his iPad. While the ceremony continued, Faith weaved her way over to Buffy and joined her against the wall. Buffy couldn't help smirk at her cohort's attire. After her second and final break-up with Robin Woods, Faith began combining high-end, elegant pieces of clothing with her badass street fighter attire. When Buffy finally risked asking about the change, Faith murmured something about showing stuck-up principals a real surprise and Buffy left it at that.

Today Faith was wearing elegant gray woolen pinstriped paints with a lovely maroon blazer. However, she had paired it with black motorcycle boots and a baby pink tee shirt that had "Bite Me" in dark, hot pink sparkly letters. The tee shirt had been a bit of a gag gift from some of the girls for her birthday last year. Faith got a kick of wearing it with her most business-like attire.

"This is insane, right?" Faith asked, finally speaking, "I'm not the only one thinking that? Am I?"

Buffy chuckled. "No. This is pretty much the definition of insanity."

Turning to glance at her friend, Faith questioned, "Then why are we allowing this?"

"Can you imagine what would happen if we didn't try to organize this?"

Faith shook her head disbelievingly. Silence fell between them again as they listened to more and more names drawn out of the bowl, followed by squeals of glee or cries of disappointment. Buffy and Faith seemed to be the only ones in the room not invested in the proceedings. Even Willow and Xander sat giddily huddled together in the front row, Willow bouncing lightly like she had had too many mocha lattes.

"Damn. How long is this thing gunna take?" Faith cried.

Rolling her eyes, Buffy said, "Who knows. I'll be happy if we're done before the weekend is over."

Shooting her a look of horror, Faith begged, "Please find me a mini-apocalypse very far away if that happens.

"Right there with you."

"Are we really doing this for the entire council?"

"Again, it was the only way. We would have had a mutiny on our hands if we didn't."

"But video-conferencing?"

Shrugging her shoulders at Faith's question, Buffy said, "It made everyone happy. And happy supernatural beings means less chance of badness."

"How long did it take Willow and Dawn to figure out the schedule again?" Faith asked drolly.

Buffy snorted and replied, "Like two weeks. And that was using Excel and a little bit of magic. Literally. I think Willow had Althenea help her tweak some organization spell. Will justified it as necessary to keep the peace and somehow got Althenea to buy it."

Faith laughed, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "Insanity. Complete insanity."

"Yup."

More silence passed between them. At one point, two of the younger slayers had to be removed from the room because their screeches of excitement at having been chosen together became too much. Their jumping around and bumping into everyone looked like it was about to start a riot. A couple of older slayers grabbed the girls and hauled them out to the hallway, hopefully to calm down.

After that, Faith couldn't help turning to Buffy and exclaiming, "It's just a effin' movie, right?"

"To quote my sister," Buffy replied, her voice taking a snotty tone, "'Buffy, _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows_ is not_ just_ a movie. It is the culmination of a decade of epic, cinematic adventure. The final chapter is one of the greatest works of fiction in the modern age.'"

Faith laughed at Buffy's spot on impression of Dawn.

Continuing her Dawn imitation, Buffy added, "'If we don't make some kind of plan for everyone to see the movie opening weekend, the results will be bad. Very, very bad.'

"And here we are, spending hours and hours of our Saturday at a lottery to figure out who gets to go to which showing of _Harry Potter_ opening weekend."

"For every member of the council? At all of our headquarters and bases?"

"Yup."

"Insanity, man. Insanity."

"Yup."


End file.
